


I'm Burning Inside

by Blitz_Unite



Series: F(1)ootball One Shots [1]
Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Domestic, FC Bayern München, Fluff without Plot, Friendship, Multi, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Short One Shot, Writing Exercise, idk if i got julian right properly tbh, literally just trying to depict normalcy kind of, slight angst, so maybe ooc?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29715435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blitz_Unite/pseuds/Blitz_Unite
Summary: The best description for Joshua Kimmich is fire.---Short writing practice (the exercise is written in the end so tell me whether I succeeded!)
Relationships: Julian Draxler/Joshua Kimmich, Serge Gnabry & Joshua Kimmich
Series: F(1)ootball One Shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2183835
Kudos: 2





	I'm Burning Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Please alert me to typos or bad writing in general lol, all written and published on the same day so I barely proof read. 
> 
> Also please remember, these are fiction versions of real life people and this entire thing is fiction.

The stadium is eerily quiet. No other players goofing off and shooting footballs at each other, no coaches or assistant coaches berating them, not even the marketing team setting up to shoot a few pics. The nearest person being the security guard who’d let Joshua in. The afternoon sun is so strong, he already feels sweat gathering at the back of his head. Dropping his training bag on the grass, he fishes out a soccer ball from the metal container, squeezing it once to make sure it was sufficiently filled. After checking, he sets it down and stretches. Then he kicks that ball as far as he can. And then, he runs. 

\---

Serge shakes his head at him, as he always does when Joshua shows up, freshly showered with his sweaty training clothes barely stuffed in a pack. “You know rest days are for resting, right?”

“Jo?” comes Leon’s voice from the background, familiar, already recognizing the other man from Serge’s words alone. He must be in the living room, stretched out on the couch with some old historical match playing on Serge’s large television. Joshua looks at Gnabry, tilting his head as if it’s a question when they both know the answer. Serge sighs, rolls his eyes a tad too dramatically for it to be serious and opens the door wider. He tries to shake his head once again at Joshua’s grin, but a small smile spreads on his face anyway. Wrapping an arm around Joshua, they make their way to where Leon’s situated as expected on the fluffy couch in the middle of Serge’s home. 

“Ah, I knew it was you. Who else is going to be chastised by Serge of all people?”

“Hey!” Serge shoves Leon, who only shoves back. They roll off the couch, in some way wrestling and in other ways simply pushing each other around. Joshua stands a few feet away, shifting his weight side to side even though he’s been in this situation so many times. Finally, he forces himself to move, but a step towards the squabbling two leads to three steps backwards. Gritting his teeth, he decides to go for the TV remote instead, and it's easier. Leon and Serge glance over at him, but he sinks into the couch. 

“Ran a bit too much, I think,” he says, because it’s easier. 

\---

The next time, Serge swings open the door before Joshua even has time to ring the bell, there’s a glint in his eye which makes Jo frown. “And the crown prince has arrived!” he announces, gesturing for the other to come inside. 

“Josh?” 

That isn’t Leon’s voice. Kimmich’s legs take him inside automatically, mouth open in confusion, he doesn’t even notice Serge grabbing his training bag and tossing it on the shoe rack. Leon’s tuft of brown hair is still visible in the living room, but he’s turned away, focus on something else. He wasn’t the one to speak. 

Julian Draxler stands, a perfect white toothed smile on his face, right in front of Joshua. 

He’s too stunned to do anything. 

Julian hugs him immediately, his hair is longer, flopping over one side of his face. His lanky arms wrap around Joshua, but not like before when Jo would disappear inside them. “Jesus, what kind of workout regimen do they have you guys on?” the taller jokes, but still, he’s covering Kimmich. 

“Don’t even ask,” Leon pipes up. Julian’s still hugging him. He should hug back. Lifting his arms feels like lifting weights, but Joshua manages, and he hugs back. Then, right then, does Julian pull away, holding him at arm’s length. “Really, they go intense here. I mean I’m glad for it, but damn. Big change,” continues Goretzka, ignoring the way Joshua is still frozen while Julian examines him and lets out comments about how he’s so much more serious in the media nowadays. Serge stands, arms crossed, soft smile on his face. He catches Joshua’s eyes and then announces. 

“Hey guys, could both of you grab the drinks from the kitchen? Jo can show you around Jules,” then he has the audacity to wink at Joshua, who can’t even blush because he’s  _ feeling so much _ and it’s too big of a change from feeling absolutely nothing. 

“How come you ca-you’re here,” he manages to get out. Then he smiles. And, oh god. He hasn’t smiled like this in a while. 

“I had some time,” shrugs Julian, keeping one arm around Joshua as they walk to Serge’s kitchen through his maze of a living room. “And Leon called, and I had a break, so why not?” There was no argument for that. 

\---

“Why’d you call him?” asks Joshua later, his cheeks are pink from all the laughing and even now, a smile stays fixed on his face. 

Leon purses his lips, before patting the other’s shoulder. “I was worried about you,”

\---

He made a mistake. He skipped his extra practice. The others know, their gazes bore into him as he walks a path of shame into the locker room.

“What happened?” Serge actually asks, eyebrows furrowed. Joshua clams up, he knew they knew, but he didn’t think they’d be so forward, so obvious. “Woah, Jo, calm down. No one’s going to jump you-”  _ Shit _ , Joshua’s lips mouthed. They knew. They so knew. “Wait, that’s it? Why is anyone going to jump you? You just came in so scared and jittery, tell me what’s wrong,”

\---

He really needs a hug. He doesn’t know why, but there are tears but they aren’t there but he can just feel them simmering just below the surface and-

Julian grabs him. They’re in Joshua’s apartment. Julian was supposed to help him figure out new wallpaper. But now the other is lying on the couch, and Joshua’s curled up on his chest and the tears are still there but now they don’t feel like they’re going to burst out of his sockets. “I missed you,” he says. Julian presses a kiss to the top of his head. Joshua smiles. His posture slackens, there’s a tic somewhere in his calf alerting him to a pulled muscle. Briefly, he considers ignoring it. His head shifts, so that he’s looking up at Julian, who tilts his head. 

“I pulled a muscle, I think,” 

“I’ll miss you,” Julian responds. Kimmich slides off, hands encircling that one spot. He barely registered the pain before, but now it was there, uncomfortably pulsing almost. Julian offers him a hand, Joshua grabs it. 

\---

“It’s really not going great,” his chin is against his chest, and there’s the smallest of smiles on his face but Joshua knows Julian, and he knows that smile means nothing. Jo gently takes the other’s hands, his playing with his fingers. “I think I’m becoming sad with playing, like I step on the field, and it’s like all the life of me is sucked out,” 

“Let’s play basketball,” Joshua says. Julian looks at him in disbelief. 

“That’s not going to solve my problems,” he says. 

“It’s not supposed to,” 

“Then why are we doing it?” he questions skeptically, that’s a version of Draxler not many are familiar with. He can be serious, of course, but he’s always warm. Now there’s a chill in his wry smile and Joshua can feel goosebumps from it. 

“Because you don’t want to be sad,” no one does, but Joshua doesn’t say that part out loud. He gets up off the floor where both of them had been slumped together, still holding on to Julian’s hand. “This will make you slightly less sad, and I know it for a fact. Then, when you’re less sad, we figure out how to make you even less sad by figuring out your problem,”

“I know my problem,”

“You don’t,”

“And isn’t that a bit counter productive? You’ll make me less sad but then the problem itself makes me sad, so you’ll just lift my spirits a bit to dampen it right back again,”

“That won’t happen,” Joshua promises. Julian shakes his head, but let’s Joshua pull him up. The latter wants to make the other gain energy, he wants to jump around and bang his chest and make the other feel  _ alive _ . Because that’s all he knows. It works, so why not do it? Except for that feeling smouldering in his stomach that tells him it won’t work because he knows Julian, he always has. 

So they go, and Joshua grabs the too filled with air basketball and they play. 

\---

The smile is back on Julian’s face, it's freezing. Joshua leans forward to peck his icy lips. This Draxler, only he sees, the sweet bite of winter and the ice cream of a hot summer day all wrapped up in one man. This Julian is Joshua’s. 

“I’ll have to start packing eventually,” Julian says, but he’s not sad about going back. He’s sad about leaving, but not about going back. Kimmich’s mind calls it a success, but that’s what he does when he makes everything black and white and he can’t do that when Julian has a halo made of rainbows. Joshua wraps his arms around Julian’s neck and presses his sweat forehead to the other. 

“I’ll miss you,”

Julian’s frosty kiss spreads all over Jo’s warm skin. 

“I missed you,”

**Author's Note:**

> The exercise was creating the theme of romance and anxiety based tension in normal life without actually mentioning it or making it obvious (very confusing, I know). So basically creating an atmosphere and tone, but letting the reader 'feel' it not 'know' it.


End file.
